OSCE MONITORING IN KARABAKH CONFIRMS VERSION ON AZERI PARTY BURNING GRASS
Yerkir
04.07.2006 16:13
YEREVAN (YERKIR) – On July 3, the Office of the Personal Representative
of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office (C-i-O) monitored the contact line of
the Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijani Armed Forces in Aghdam-Gindarkh
direction and in the settlement of Novrouzlou, reports the Press
Service of the NKR MFA.
>From the positions of the NKR Defense Army, the monitoring mission
was led by Personal Representative of the OSCE C-i-O Andrzej Kasprzyk.
Field Assistants of the Personal Representative of the OSCE C-i-O
Peter Key (Great Britain), Irzhi Aberle (Czech Republic) and Gunter
Folk (Germany) were in the group. The monitoring passed in accordance
with the planned schedule; however Azerbaijani side as before did
not lead out the OSCE mission to the front line. In the course of
the monitoring no violations of the cease-fire regime were registered.
The representatives of the NKR Ministries of Foreign Affairs and
Defense, who accompanied the OSCE monitoring mission, noted that
contrary to the Azerbaijani side’s allegations on the burning of the
populated areas, which were in the NKR security zone, the monitoring
participants did not find such facts.
In one of the sections of neutral region traces of fire were
discovered, which spread from territories under the control of
Azerbaijan. This again confirms the version earlier announced by NKR
authorities that the Azerbaijani party burns grass. The monitoring
of different sections of contact-line will also be conducted on July
4 and 5.
We remind that June 15 the NKR MFA addressed the Office of the
Personal Representative of the OSCE C-i-O, asking for monitoring
the zone adjacent to Azerbaijan to provide a real assessment to the
situation and to make sure Baku invents accusations on alleged burning
of border settlements on territories controlled by the NKR.

NOT ONLY LAND, THEY WILL RETURN EVERYTHING
Lragir.am
04 July 06
Several former commanders of the Karabakh war made a statement July
4 at the Pastark Club. The reason for their statement is the recent
activity around the settlement of the conflict over Karabakh,
particularly the proposals involving the return of liberated
territories, which are approved by official Yerevan.
“We call the patriotic forces for unification at this crucial moment,
and defend our endangered Fatherland,” announce the veterans of the
Karabakh war led by Manvel Yeghiazaryan, the commander of the Arabo
squad and the former commander of the organization National Army of
Liberation of Artsakh Arkady Karapetyan.
“In fact, it means surrendering our homeland. Everything starts little
by little, first they will surrender a village, then a region, then
Karabakh, then Armenia. This is the logic,” says Arkady Karapetyan
with regard to Vardan Oskanyan’s statement on endorsing the proposal
of the mediators.
The azatamartiks began their statement with a description of the hard
social conditions of most participants of the war in Karabakh.
According to Manvel Yeghiazaryan, it is not an accidental reference.
“We know who did what, who has power, who is oligarch, who is
rich. Damn them! The war in Artsakh is not over, we know very well
what they did during the war in Artsakh. I assure that their political
will, their role in the society now was the same during the war in
Artsakh. People made millions, naturally they fear for their money,
they think what’s the point in countering the United States or Russia,”
says Manvel Yeghiazaryan. He announces that in case the territories
are surrendered, he will become a militant because 21 soldiers from
his squad are missing, and he does not know what he would tell their
mothers in case the land is surrendered.
The former azatamartiks think that accepting the proposal of the
mediators is a defeatist policy, mentioning that the Armenian diplomacy
proved unable to set down our victory in the world. Manvel Yeghiazaryan
is convinced, however, that Robert Kocharyan will not sign a defeatist
agreement but he assures that people around him push him.
The participants of the liberation war are ready to take any step
to prevent surrender of territories. “Nothing is impossible, we may
protest, maybe, I do not know, everything is possible because our life
will lose its meaning after such steps. We think they will surrender
some territories. They will not surrender land, they will surrender
everything, you and us,” says Arkady Karapetyan.

SADOYAN’S COMPLEX PLAN BEFORE ELECTIONS
Lragir.am
04 July 06
On the eve of the parliamentary election 2007 Arshak Sadoyan,
National Democratic Alliance, offers a complex program costing 3
million dollars. To implement the program, the “author” suggests
spending 6 million dollars allocated by the United States.
How about the other 3 million? “Well, we will do something with it,
we will spent it on the elections,” says Sadoyan angrily. One of
the innovative approaches offered by Arshak Sadoyan is electronic
vote. He says this is a universal variant, because it is applied in
democratic countries.
The next real variant of the Sadoyan’s program is, according to the
leader of the National Democratic Alliance, ballots with a protective
layer, which cannot be applied in our country (he is afraid of the
ruse of our nation). Sadoyan suggests organizing courses for the
members of divisional committees in 1920 electoral districts. Since,
according to Arshak Sadoyan, our country lacks free mass media,
Sadoyan suggests opening a commercial TV channel of democracy, why
not also a radio of democracy and publish a colored newspaper, where
every party would have a page. Sadoyan suggests inviting experienced
politicians living in a democratic country, who would change the
moral and psychological atmosphere in the country.

SERGE SARGSYAN DOES NOT KNOW THE HISTORY?
Lragir.am
04 July 06
The participants of the war in Karabakh, condemning the stance of
official Yerevan on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict on July 4,
addressed strictures against Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan, who is
conducting a defeatist diplomacy, they say. The same azatamartiks,
however, did not criticize Serge Sargsyan, the minister of defense,
who upholds compromise, moreover, he would not utter a word against
the return of territories, as a minister of defense should have done.
Moreover, the famous phrase that “Aghdam is not our homeland” belongs
to Serge Sargsyan.
“Perhaps he does not know the history well, because Aghdam is our
homeland, and formerly it was not called Aghdam, and used to be
one of the capitals of Armenia, Tigranakert can still be found near
Aghdam. Varazabun, the summer residence of the kings, is near Aghdam,
in the land where there are traces of Armenians everywhere, but not
traces of Turks,” says the former commander of the National Army for
the Liberation of Artsakh Arkady Karapetyan. As for an assessment of
the duties of Serge Sargsyan, Arkady Karapetyan is quite brief.
“By saying army I understand ideology. Our army today does not have
an ideology,” says Arkady Karapetyan.
His brief speech is completed by Lyova Sahakyan, a former soldier of
the Army of Independence, who recalled the interview of a TV channel
with Serge Sargsyan in 2003.
“He asked have you ever thought about what our army lives on, and
so on, and so forth, our budget is not sufficient, we lack this and
we lack that.” Now I am asking who sustains our defense ministry,
our troops. The state should sustain our troops. If someone else is
sustaining the army, it is not an army, it is not a ministry. Draw
your own conclusions,” says the former azatamartik.

PEOPLE LIVING ON THIS LAND MUST SPEAK ON BEHALF OF NAGORNO KARABAKH
Lragir.am
04 July 06
Ashot Bleyan announced July 4 at the Pastark Club that he is ready
to visit Baku again. “I will go to Baku directly, not to be taken
there by other ways. A politician is obliged to step into fire if
the resolution of the question requires that.”
In the meantime, Armen Ashotyan, who debated with him, thinks
that the best variant for us is the status quo in the question of
Nagorno Karabakh. “We need to digest these territories, resettle
these territories. If there are only soldiers, there are no farmers,
doctors, teachers, there is no society, it contains certain dangers.”
“There cannot be a status quo. It would mean that life stops,”
counters Ashot Bleyan. “If the occupied territories are your homeland,
you are government, go and live there, build houses there. Establish a
branch of the National Assembly and live there, set a model. You have
money and power. Whereas you tell people living in Armenia to leave
their houses and move to live there because I want you to go. This is
adventurousness. Are we captives?” asks Ashot Bleyan. He is convinced
that we turned the question of self-determination of people into
struggle against the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. “We did
it. Ashot Bleyan did not do it,” noted Ashot Bleyan.
According to him, people who live in that land, should speak in the
name of Nagorno Karabakh. “Honor and glory to the people of Nagorno
Karabakh, who showed that they struggle for the land by living in
that land. We benefited because the people of Artsakh stayed to live
on this land. But there were more people until 1988. I do not think
that it is in my interests that the ethnic Azerbaijanis left Nagorno
Karabakh,” announced Ashot Bleyan. And the loss, the greatest loss
for Ashot Bleyan is that “in 1988 250 thousand Baku Armenians became
refugees and now we do not know where these people are. The loss of 250
thousand Armenians of Baku with their property was a destructive loss,
people who could have privatize the oil pipeline. The Mantashov family
came from Karabakh, and at one time they bought Baku with money. We
also lost Shahumyan and Getashen forever.”

THE CONFLICT WAS NOT INSTIGATED BY ONE PERSON
Lragir.am
04 July 06
Ashot Bleyan, the New Way Party, announced July 4 at the Pastark Club
that the statement of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair Mathew Bryza is
favorable, for it allows to become alert, understand, focus attention
on the fact that the conflict is not resolved and the resolution is
not likely in the nearest future. The conflict was not instigated
by one person, and if all of us took part in the occurrence of the
conflict, consequently this complicated conflict cannot be resolved
without participation of everyone of us in person, believes Ashot
Bleyan. After this statement he noticed, “It is useful that people
worry about Bryza’s statement, why are you afraid?”
Republican Armen Ashotyan, debating with mutual accusations and stings,
says Mathew Bryza who has experience of a mediator in Georgian-Ossetian
and Georgian-Abkhazian conflicts, has assumed a greater goal. He must
expedite the settlement of the conflict for the sake of the economic
interests of the United States and the question of Iran. And these
interests are the ways of energy resource supply, notes Ashotyan and
announces that Bryza’s statement smells the oil of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
and the gas of Baku-Tbilisi-Erzrum. This gas pipeline will supply
Europe, says Ashotyan. He is also hopeful that one day Iran-Armenia
will become a transit pipeline to Europe.
Ashot Bleyan says, “It is clear that at one time the former government
was busy hampering Azerbaijan, allegedly it has no oil and gas and a
strike is enough to make it collapse. It is obvious that Azerbaijan
is not going to collapse, on the contrary, the rates of development
of Azerbaijan in the past few years and in the upcoming two years
exceed the rates of development in Armenia several times.
It is known that the state budgets, state wealth cannot be compared.
If we are trying to measure our budgets by hundreds of millions,
they are already measuring by billions of dollars, it is obvious
that Azerbaijan increasingly feels confident as a powerful state in
the region.”

ARMENIA TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CONFERENCE ON HIV/AIDS ISSUES
ArmRadio.am
04.07.2006 11:31
August 29-30 a conference on issues of availability of measures for
HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care will be held in Tbilisi. The
conference will be attended by specialists from Armenia, Georgia
and Azerbaijan. Head of HIV/AIDS program of the WHO Armenia Office
Gayane Ghukasyan told “Armenpress” that representatives of the three
countries will report on the measures of prevention undertaken and
the progress achieved.
WHO specialists will present how to undertake effective preventive
measures with small expenses. German experts will present their
experience.
At the end of the conference a national plan of HIV/AIDS prevention
will be elaborated for every country.

RA PRESIDENT ROBERT KOCHARYAN TO LEAVE FOR IRAN
ArmRadio.am
04.07.2006 12:35
July 5 RA President Robert Kocharyan will leave for the Islamic
Republic of Iran on a two-day working visit. The delegation headed by
the President comprises RA Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Energy,
Head of Staff of the Office to the President, Ambassador of Armenia
to Iran, and other officials.
Robert Kocharyan will have a meeting with the President of the
Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Later the meeting of
Armenian and Iranian delegations will continue in an enlarged format,
bilateral documents will be signed. Leaders of the two countries will
give a joint press conference.
In the framework of the working visit RA president will have a meeting
with the Foreign Minister of Iran Manouchehr Mottaki.
Robert Kocharyan will visit also the Armenian Embassy in Iran and
will meet representatives of the Iranian-Armenian community.

PRESIDENT ROBERT KOCHARYAN RECEIVED AAA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BRYAN ARDOUNY
ArmRadio.am
04.07.2006 13:47
President Robert Kocharyan received today the Executive Director of
the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) Bryan Ardouny and the Regional
Director of the Assembly Arpi Vardanyan.
The President characterized the cooperation with the Armenian Assembly
of America as productive.
Bryan Ardouny presented the major directions of the Assembly’s activity
for the welfare of Armenia. The interlocutors exchanged views on a
number of issues on the agenda of Armenian-American relations and
regional questions.

AMENDMENTS TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN RA LAND CODE
ArmRadio.am
04.07.2006 14:33
July 3 RA President Robert Kocharyan signed the Law on implementing
amendments in the Land Code of the Republic of Armenia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress